“Sir, war is for younger men. I beseech you to lower that pistol and think of your life. I have twenty men here and you are but six… This is not the course of wisdom, sir!”
“It is the course of honour!”
Swaythling squeezed the trigger and the five horsemen drew swords and dug their spurs in.
Micah grabbed at a pistol and shot, sitting bolt upright and aiming as well as he could. The leading horseman fell, the pistol ball through his chest. Micah dropped the long flintlock and pulled the backsword, parrying the slash of the second of the young men. He heard a fusillade of shots and a loud metallic clanging as lead balls hit hard into the iron of breastplates. A horse screamed.
His direct opponent dragged his horse’s head round and swung again, a wild roundhouse slash. Micah sat straight, let the sword drag across his breastplate and thrust directly with his own weapon. The backsword, heavy and made strong with its stiff reverse spine, scraped up the young man’s breastplate and over its top, penetrating the leather stock and through the throat. He held tight to the hilt and let the body drop off his point and onto the ground, pouring blood.
He shook his hand distastefully, ridding himself of the gore before it could drip down his sleeve.
“Corporal Perkins!”
“Here, sir. All six of ‘em, sir, down in the dirt. One of ours nicked by that first shot, sir, clipped across the outside of his leg, sir – cut a hole in his breeches and not much else, sir. The old man and three of ‘em, shot to buggery, sir. The other two – one you shot dead, sir, and the last just choked on his blood, sir. Most of us got two shots off and I reckon as how maybe half of them hit home. Good shooting, sir.”
“So it was. Well done! You have trained your men well, Perkins. I shall name you to Major Carew as a deserving man.”
“Thank’ee, sir. The two of they was yours, sir – the one you shot clean through and the stiff at your feet, sir. I’ll get their stuff, sir, what belongs to you as is fair.”
The men were stripping the bodies of everything valuable, including some expensive thigh-high leather boots. Each of the six had been carrying a purse, the contents of four being split into twenty equal parts while the other two were passed across to Micah, that being right, they believed.
“Kills a man on your own, he’s yours, sir. All of us got the rest between us, so we splits equal. Got a gold ring, one of your two has, on his finger, so that comes your way too. The old fellow got three rings and a gold pin to his neckcloth and a snuffbox, sir, and I’m carrying those until we gets to someplace I can sell ‘em and share out. Pistols and swords, too. Don’t go much on them breast-and-backs, sir, not now I seen ‘em in a fight. Pistol ball goes clean through except it comes from the side and bounces off. Stops a sword, I suppose, but I reckons we uses pistols more than a sticker… Anyway, the three they got between ‘em ain’t no use for having holes in ‘em. Four hosses what is good beasts. Only one got shot, what was lucky, and the one the old man was riding what won’t be walking free this season, sir. The two is yours, sir. Your man Rootes has got them on leading reins already.”
“Right, Corporal. You have everything well in hand. What do we do with the bodies?”
“Tell the grooms back at the big house where to find ‘em, sir. They ain’t no concern of ours.”
Micah agreed – the dead men had brought their fate upon themselves and he had no duty to them.
“Are we ready to go?”
“Five minutes, sir. Get ourselves tidied up and all dealt with.”
Corporal Perkins went off to collect his share of the spoils, the counting having finished, and Micah glanced inside the two purses that had come his way. The one was as fat almost as his fist but contained only silver, perhaps five pounds in shillings and half-crowns, which was still not, he thought, to be sneezed at. The other was leaner but had six gold pieces, one of which he recognised as a doubloon, the other five unknown but bigger and heavier, as well as some silver. He tucked them away in his saddlebag. The gold ring was too small for his fingers, his hands big and powerful from the quarry, he supposed.
“Rootes, will this fit you?”
It did, much to Rootes’ pleasure – it made him look like a gentleman, he thought.
Micah reported to Daniel.
“Job well done, Red Man. That’s a big scrape across your breastplate – gives you the look of a warrior, which you are, of course.”
“Not by choice, sir. They chose to single me out. My Corporal Perkins showed very well, sir. Could we make him sergeant?”
“Call him across.”
Perkins joined them, trotting eagerly, showing keen.
“Captain Slater has told me much that is good of you, Perkins. You are a sergeant as of now. Well done. Carry on as you have started and you can go higher. Can you read and write?”
“Sunday School, sir. At chapel. I ain’t the best with pen and paper but I can do all a sergeant needs.”
“Even better. Keep at it. Read a book or two to make you better with words. A good campaign – or a bloody battle – and you can be a lieutenant, if you wish to rise in the world.”
“I do that, sir. Pastor said as how I might stand in his shoes one day, but I can be a officer and a gentleman instead of a bible-thumper, sir. I’m your man, sir.”
“Well done, Sergeant Perkins. I shall not forget you.”
The pair watched as Perkins strode off, delight showing in his every pace.
“There are times when I can enjoy being an officer and able to do that sort of thing, Red Man. That’s a man whose life is to be far more than ever he hoped for, and I can be proud for making him. Help him as a sergeant, Red Man – he will make a fine officer with a few pointers. You will need followers when you are a major in command of your own regiment.”
“Only if the war lasts a few more years, sir.”
“Oh, it will do that, for sure! For the moment what do we do here, do you think?”
“Empty the stables of everything we can use and take the horses. Same for the kitchens and pantries. Are there waggons here, sir?”
“One four-horse dray and two farm carts for pairs. Eight good pulling horses and some riding stock and a pair of big shires for the plough. Good gun horses, the shires. If we can’t use them, there will be gunners who can.”
Micah had not thought about the needs of the artillery; he suspected he must do so if he was to rise in rank.
“I don’t see burning the house, sir. The people tried to flee rather than fight, so it would not be right.”
Daniel shook his head in mock dismay.
“How fortunate they are, Red Man. We should search for muskets as well. If he was to call his tenants to muster, then he might have put together the arms for a company, or more perhaps.”
They sent two of the ostlers off in a dog cart behind a pair of donkeys to pick up the bodies and then stripped the house of the valuables they could use on campaign.
“Left them a side of beef and a couple of sacks of flour, sir. They can pick up milk and butter from their own dairy. The children and womenfolk won’t starve, but they will need to work this summer if they are not to have a hard winter. They will still have their rents, if they can collect them.”
Daniel shrugged – they were not his concern.
“Back to Botley for tonight, Red Man, then to make ready for the road. We should march westwards in a couple of days.”
“Yes, sir. Found Swaythling’s armoury, sir, such as it was. Three score of pikes and precious little else. Half a dozen ancient swords for officers – more like old-fashioned rapiers from Queen Elizabeth’s day than anything I would wish to be fighting with. Some sailors’ cutlasses as well which we have put up in the carts. I’ve set a platoon to work with felling axes, taking the heads off the pikes, for the handles being inconveniently long to cart away. Make some firewood for the ladies!”
“Bring the pikeheads with us. Not easy to lay your hands on muskets and pistols when you live in the countryside, Red Man. I
suspect as well that he was inclined to count his coppers. He is not so far from Southampton and it is possible to buy many things in any port town.”
They marched back to Botley, satisfied with their day’s work. They had taken no losses and had come away with a good store of provisions and the horse had money for a good week of roistering when next they had time off, those who were that way inclined. The more virtuous had cash in hand that would allow them to improve their lives, in some cases by paying their way on a ship to the Virginias when the fighting was over.
Sergeant Perkins was one of those who suspected that he might not stay in England when his discharge came.
“Carpenter, by trade, I am, sir. Two years out of my ‘prenticeship and a journeyman and soon able to be my own master. But I don’t fancy spending me life in London, building houses for them what got the money and tugging me forelock for the privilege of working for ‘em. Off to the Virginias, that’s for me, sir, and be me own man. All I needs is the money to buy passage for me and a young lady of me choice and off I shall go, as soon as the fighting’s over, that is. More than one or two others what thinks the same as me, sir. Can’t go back to crawling to a master, sir, and can’t be me own man here.”
It was enough to set Micah thinking. He knew what he did not want to be, and that was a labourer in a slate quarry. He had no idea of what he would do in his future, though he much wished to return to London, possibly to Catherine Bayliss - though not without money in his purse and a plan for their life. She was an attractive girl, he mused, possibly the more so for being one of the very few he had ever talked to… Distance was not making the heart grow fonder, he found, despite the old saying; he might have been mistaken. Perhaps he might just converse with one or two others, to discover if she had been more than a passing fancy. That was for another day; for the moment he must consider what he was to do with himself when the war was over.
He sat his horse as they marched the short distance to Botley and then leant back in the Bugle, a pint in his hand and considering all that he was and could be.
Making a living was the first concern, and the sole skill he possessed was that of the quarry, and he had no wish to hew stone for the rest of his existence. Perhaps he could put the money together to buy a quarry and hire men to work it for him – he did not know how much cash that would call for but suspected it would be no little sum. Other than that, he was able to fight at hand to hand, and better than most, but that was of small value when once the war ended.
He could stay in the standing army, perhaps – the country fought the Scots and the Irish quite frequently and the Spanish very often and the French at regular intervals, though not so much just lately.
Ships sailed overseas and often took fighting men with them. That might be a possibility - but was no way of settling down.
Daniel came into the barroom and sat down with a mug, relaxing before dinner.
“Major, what are we to do when the wars are over?”
“Why, Red Man, the wars are never over for our sort. There will be another fight somewhere. The Turk may need to be slapped down or there will be a garrison to hold in India – the merchant adventurers there are forever fighting the local tribes. If not, there are the Sugar Islands, which are beyond the Line and are never at peace. Failing that, there are wild Indians in the hills of the Virginias, or so they tell me. No, brother, when this business is over, then I shall pack my bags and look for the next – and I shall find a war quickly, I doubt not. Will you come with me?”
“I might well, you know, Major. I can think of little else for me.”
“There is nothing for the likes of thee and me, Red Man. We have found the one thing we do well and will stick with it till the day we die. Perhaps there will be a pretty face to divert us for a few weeks, a year or two, but our feet will grow restless and we shall seek the sound of the drum again, because that is what we are. We are not to grow old and content, sat next to our goodwives and laughing at the antics of the grandchildren – that is not for us. We shall be strapping ourselves into our harness and clambering creakily back onto our old warhorses and smiling as we sniff the powder in the air until eventually we move too slowly and a ball or sword comes with our name written on it. For our epitaph? ‘Silly old bugger did not know when to stop.’ I have said that myself beside more than one grave.”
“A bleak forecast, Major!”
“We are soldiers, Red Man. The happy ending is for other sorts of folk. Enough of this doom and gloom – what’s for dinner?”
“A goose, I am told, with gravy and good white bread and green beans.”
“What more can a man ask for? We march to Chandler’s Ford tomorrow and Romsey the day after, then work our way around the New Forest, which should supply us with a meal or two of venison. Let us enjoy our goose first.”
‘Eat, drink and be merry’ – as good a motto as any for a soldier man, Micah mused.
They struck camp and marched, waving farewell to the villagers and ignoring the cries of outrage from mothers whose daughters chose to tag on in the baggage train. A group of eight boys, youngsters barely starting to shave, came to Micah as he went to mount his horse.
“Begging thy pardon, Mr Red Man, sir.”
The spokesman knuckled his forehead, much abashed at daring to address the fiercest of the soldiers, as was well known.
“Me and the lads, sir, us wants to come with thee. As soldiers, sir. Couldn’t say before, like, as our mums and dads would ‘ave taken into us, leathered us good and proper if we stayed in the camp.”
“You are welcome, men. Sergeant Fletcher!”
Fletcher ran across, stamped to attention, making a show for the boys.
“Eight young men, Sergeant. Volunteers. Put their names on the payroll. Muskets, I think, not having the meat on their chests and shoulders yet to push a pike.”
“Yes, sir. You men come with me. You are soldiers now!”
Micah grinned, noticing the emphasis Fletcher had put on the word ‘men’ and seeing the boys swagger in response.
“What’s your name, young man?”
The spokesman blushed scarlet at such prominence, being the only one to name himself to the Red Man.
“Josh Gibbons, sir.”
“Good. Off you go now.”
The boys marched with their company, staring straight ahead and ignoring an irate young Gibbons sister telling her Joshua that he would be in trouble as soon as his dad heard what he’d done. Micah threw a fourpenny piece to the girl, said her brother would come back a man. He did not add that he might not come back at all – she could work that out for herself as she grew older.
Chapter Twelve
It was a simple straight line on the map, but to get from Botley to Chandler’s Ford and thus to the New Forest the battalion had to cross the valley of the River Itchen.
There were bridges in the town of Southampton and in Winchester, but the bulk of the valley was water meadow interspersed with unreclaimed marsh and with no obvious crossings. The Itchen ran close to the old canal, the Navigation, and routes were almost all north-south following the towpath; merchants used the valley to travel between the port and the ancient capital of England and then travelled east or west from the two towns, needing no crossing road in the middle.
A journey of an apparent ten miles become closer to twenty as the battalion was forced to march three parts of the way to Winchester before coming to the bridges at Shawford where the valley was pinched by the chalk Downs on the east and the gravels of the New Forest on the west. They were then able to turn back to the southwest.
“Rich lands, Red Man. Water meadows are just what milk cattle need. Cheese and cream to sell in the big towns with a canal to take them quickly to market. The farmers around here will carry their bellies before them!”
“So they may, Major. But I have a company and a troop of horse to pass quickly across this muddy bloody mess! Bugger the farmers!”
“Tut! Backsliding, Brother Red Man! I sha
ll tell the pastor of thy wicked words!”
“Bugger the pastor too, sir!” Micah suddenly grinned. “I wonder how he is doing as a soldier? He insisted on leading his flock to war and was shouldering a pike when last I saw him in Stamford. Weightier than a prayer-book, I doubt not!”
Daniel shook his head at such levity.
“No doubt he has marched against the King’s garrison from Nottingham, Red Man. I have not heard what has happened there. They will have tried to push south to close in on London, or so I suppose. The King has it in mind that he can end the war by taking London and will not consider any other strategy. He might do better to secure the ports of the west and east of England and hold the land from Nottingham north to the Scottish border, taking stock there and bringing in arms and men from Holland and France and training up a strong army, but I much suspect he will push hard on London with forces that are still weak and raw.”
“I can live with his errors, sir. If he had ever been a sensible man, there would have been no war. He has brought this conflict upon himself and I can only hope that we can destroy him quickly, before too much harm is done to the country. He has never been a wise man and will not surround himself with the good and sensible of the land and listen to their sage advice. The pastor often said in reproof to us in chapel that ‘a fool and his money are soon parted’. Normally that was when a quarryman had been so rash as to buy a new dress for his wife – pastor did not approve of fancy clothes. In this instance, a fool and his kingdom are to be parted.”
“Better that the fool’s head and shoulders should be parted, Red Man. It will never be possible to persuade him to abdicate or to accept the power of Parliament – best that he should die and that his son should be taken in hand by carefully appointed tutors who can teach him the ways of virtue.”
“Rather a boring King than an arrogant idiot you would say, sir?”
“Exactly so. We soldiers can roister sufficiently to make up for the drabness of a virtuous court. Old England will still be the land of cakes and ale, as Shakespeare said so well, but the King will take no part in the jollities.”
Red Man Page 20
